Flight to Helsinki, Finland

On Thursday night I booked my hotel for Helsinki. I normally book hotels at this last minute. First, it limits my options if not many hotels are available – making my decision easier. Second, it allows me to receive good deals if the hotels discount their rooms since nobody will be staying in them. Third, if I change my plans I do not need to cancel one hotel room and rebook.

I made a reservation at the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel. The rate was 67.20 euros per night which was not much more than the hostels I considered.

I had originally booked the 10:20 am flight from London Heathrow to Helsinki rather than the earlier flight because, as I wrote in a prior post, I was unaware whether Fulham or Everton would be home on Thursday night in a Europa League match. However, it was a good decision as the London underground would not have gotten me to the earlier flight on time. The tube does not open until 5:45 am so I would have needed to determine another way to get to Heathrow.

Instead I left Big Chris’ house around 7:45 am and was at Heathrow at 9:00 am. My only concern with the flight was that if it was late I might miss some of the Florida Panthers and Chicago Blackhawks game I was planning to attend Friday night. The puck dropped at 7 pm so there was not much wiggle room with my schedule.

The flight took off on time (10:20 am) and landed on time (3:15 pm). FinnAir runs a shuttle from the airport to the Helsinki train station for 5.90 euros. It runs frequently and is a convenient way to get from the airport to downtown Helsinki.

Booking Hotels for Northern England

I woke up Tuesday morning with nothing to do until 5 pm when I was supposed to meet Timmie Hampton at Pinchito Tapas in Islington. Thus, I decided it was time to book some hotels or hostels for my trip to Northern England. First up was Newcastle. I mainly used three sites to research where I would stay.

1) hostelworld.com
2) hotels.com
3) venere.com

At first I could not decide where to stay in Newcastle. My Let’s Go Europe book said Albatross was the best hostel in Newcastle. However, they only had 6 bed dorms available and I was not keen on sharing a room with five other people. I looked at hotels but they were all priced around £60 or £70 – too much to spend on myself (at least on my first nights on my own). So I decided to book the 6 bed dorm for £18.95 through hostelworld.com.

Next up was Manchester since I was planning to stay there for three nights after Newcastle. The matches I want to attend over the weekend and into Monday are:

1) Saturday, September 26: Liverpool versus Hull City at Anfield
2) Sunday, September 27: Sunderland versus Wolverhampton Wanderers at the Stadium of Light
3) Monday, September 28: Manchester City versus West Ham United at City of Manchester Stadium

Since the match at Sunderland kicked off at 4 pm on Sunday I was planning to take the train from Manchester to Sunderland Sunday morning and return back to Manchester Sunday night. I have a BritRail England pass – meaning I can travel as far as I want in England on any given day.

Through hotels.com I found the Britannia Manchester with an economy single room for £39 per night. None of the hostels on hostelworld.com had a single room and the dorms were in the £25 range. Since I could cancel my room on the day of arrival, I booked the single room at the Britannia.

Next I booked a hostel for Wednesday, September 30. I was planning to attend the Champions League match between Manchester United and VfL Wolfsburg that night. The Britannia Manchester had singles available but for £79 now. I found Hatters Hostel on hostelworld.com that had a single for £30 for the night. Now that I had most of my rooms booked for the next week I was ready to head off around London.

The only room I still needed to book for the next week was Tuesday, September 29 in Glasgow, Scotland. However, I was still debating whether to attend the Champions League match between the Rangers and Sevilla in Glasgow or the Arsenal and Olympiacos match in London.